


what a fool am I (to think my aching heart could keep the moon)

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coulson's hand, Coulson-centric, Drabble, F/M, Gen, Prompt Fic, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Coulson feels about his hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what a fool am I (to think my aching heart could keep the moon)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts).



> I know I said I probably wasn't going to write anything else before 3x11, but here you go.  
> It's another drabble, again basically following becketted/zauberer_sirin's tumblr prompt about clothing.
> 
> To be honest, I just wanted to write another drabble. Sorry it turned out angsty. I'm also really tired and still sound like Darth Vader with pneumonia.  
> Hope you like it :)

Things aren’t getting easier. This is his eighth model and he’s still not comfortable with it. Of course, he’s been through all the therapy sessions and all of Fitz‘ personal briefings and all of May’s wannabe pep talks. It’s just not – it’s not really his hand; it’s a part of him, yes, but his hand, his _real_ hand is actually sitting downstairs in the lab, behind glass. 

It’s the one he’d use to push his lower lip up to shave his chin; the one he’d hold out Lola’s window; the one he'd use to point a weapon at Loki; to lead undercover Melinda across the dance floor; to bring Audrey’s hands up to his lips for a last time; to hold Skye’s – Daisy’s – limp body up a little in Quinn’s basement; to carefully touch her hula girl figurine; to prop himself up while carving into the wall; to open the biohazard containment room to search for the GH-325; to hand Skye – Daisy – a candy bar back at the motel pool. 

The glove covering the prosthetic doesn’t help; well, it _does_ , but every night, as he’s removing the robotic hand, removing the glove reminds him of how this is just a shell, this isn’t him; it is a hollow, mechanical replacement meant to cover for the hand he happened to catch the terrigen crystal with. That _is_ something he is proud of, but it is also the last accomplishment he’s fulfilled with his _own bare hand_.

Killing Ward is something else; it’s a necessity, something they have all been waiting for to happen but been unable to complete. He knows it would have meant more to other members of the team to carry it out, it could have been something of a reparative treatment; instead, it’s him and Ward and the dust and Fitz, and it’s not even his hand, it’s the mechanical ersatz limb, reliable and violent. He knows this is something he needs to own up to; it might not have been his hand, but a part of him – the one part he never wanted. This is the hand he used to take a life, and the one he leaves behind.

The successor models come and go, and it’s still the same thing: it’s something he needs to bolt to himself in order to look complete. He’s learned to do things with only one hand, like the kids do: to shave slowly, to drive without touching the headwind, and to not share his chocolate bars.

That’s how on that one day they get to _do nothing_ , she and him, to just stroll through busy little alleys and the crowded bazaar, he freezes when she swiftly but carefully removes his glove. He’s about to protest but is cut short by her disarmingly modest smile as she squeezes his hand; and she doesn’t let go until daybreak.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :) Tell me what you think!  
> See you on the B-side! ;)
> 
> (Title's from Nina Simone's 'I Get Along Without You Very Well' which was written by Hoagy Carmichael.)


End file.
